Secret of The Night

“Darren!” I screamed, my arms shaking and suddenly feeling light-headed. I held a hand to my forehead. A breeze comes, carrying dewy mist, and cooled me down. I gratefully shook it off and grabbed a blackened stick on the ground, facing the monster. “Put him down, you freak! I need this guy to help me!”

The monster looked at me with its huge black eyes.

Hey, weren’t they tiny eyes before?

It gave me a look, like, you’re such a tiny ant. Why should I listen to you? I figured it had a point. I mean, was there really anything I could do to take on that thing? It made a noise that kind of sounded like a laugh, mocking my uselessness. I bit my lip, mind running a mile a minute. Darren shouted again, his eyes full of pain. I grimaced in sympathy.

I hefted my stick again, and charged at the monster. Now, you’d think I’d run away screaming in this kind of situation, but I had a plan. I slammed the stick into the soft backing of the monster’s knee. The stick shattered, but not before puncturing some skin. The huge obese rabbit-thing howled and opened his fist, releasing Darren, who fell to the ground and lay there motionless.

I hurried over while the monster was busy inspecting its wound. “Are you okay?” I poked Darren’s prone body with a finger, prodding him without stop. The bag seemed ok, but I didn’t want to shift him to check on material goods, so I ignored it. He opened his eyes around my 200th poke and looked up at me.

“Yeah, but still hurts like hell,” Darren sat up and groaned, holding his stomach. He lifted his shirt enough for me to see a huge developing bruise, already turning a dark indigo hue. He flicked his eyes up and fixated on something behind me. “Look out!” he shouted, grabbing my shoulders and rolling our bodies away.

The monster’s claw struck the dirt where Darren had lain just a few seconds previous, and moaned when it hit the hard floor. I started chewing on the inside of my lip, a nervous habit I picked up somewhere in 3rd grade. I would’ve been monster-skewered if Darren didn’t react fast enough. I turned around to thank the guy, but he was back to tending to his wound.

I widened my eyes, all of a sudden remembering something. “Oh my god, the lady gave me something back then. I thought it was just perfume,” I said excitedly to Darren while furiously going through my bag. “Where is it, where is it, where is it?” I mumbled incoherently to myself, hands moving with a nervous anxiety. “Got it!” I held my trophy up high for all to see.

A small clear glass spray canister. With some funny-colored liquid inside. Darren looked at me dubiously. “That’s supposed to solve our problem? Give me the stick, I’ll handle this guy.”

Wow. Just when I thought he might actually be a sweet guy. Sexist nerd.

“Shut up,” I hurled back. “I saved your ungrateful ass. I can do this.” I got up quickly and held my weapon in front of me, approaching the monster that sat cross-legged on the dirt floor, holding his claw.

Aw, baby got a broken nail! I would’ve laughed if the thing weren’t 5 times my size. When the monster saw me approach, it growled with a frightening ferocity. I stood my ground, legs shaking. It opened its mouth wide, while I held the canister straight in front of me as a shield and closed my eyes.

“Vivi!” I heard Darren cry my name.

Crap. Is this it? I die trying to get back the thing that will keep me alive? How ironic. How terribly ironic.

I braced myself, squeezing the top of the spray can as fast as I could. I hear a thud, and after a few seconds, I realize I’m still alive and open my eyes. The monster lay sleeping in front of me, dripping gray snot. It let out a snore. I jumped before turning back in triumph. “Hey, I did it!” I shouted at the boy gaping at me in shock. “It fell asleep.” I looked down at my hand, still clutching the spray canister like it was a lifeline and I was drowning. I relaxed my tensed muscles. “This thing is probably sleeping gas or something.” I put it back in bag, silently thanking the lady up there for preparing me so well.

“Nice work, Vivi,” Darren closed his mouth and gave me a half-hearted thumbs up. “Let’s go before Mr. Rabbit wakes up.”

“Good idea,” I pull him up from the ground and we start walking down the path again. I look back at the creature to make sure it’s sleeping and see it covered with a thin fog.

“I feel crummy,” Darren says out of the blue. I turn to him with a puzzled look on my face. “I mean, all I did was slow you down. I got hurt, and then you had to save me, and then you knocked that thing out. It was super Wonder Woman,” he looked back at me, which makes me turn away, hiding my smile.

“Don’t hide,” he smiles at me. I stammer indignantly. “I see you smiling. You’re proud,” he tells me. I grin. “Ok,” I say back.

We walk together silently a little bit when I realize something. Darren’s only two or three inches taller than me, and I’m only 5′3". I laugh out loud.

“What now?” He asks me.

“You’re not that much taller than me. It makes me feel better,” I say mid-laugh.

He grimaced at me. “Don’t mock me. I feel bad enough about my height. I’ll grow soon. I hope,” he laughs.

I take courage in his indifference about the subject and go on my tiptoes to pat his head like a dog. His hair’s kinda coarse, a whole lot different than the silkiness of the hair that I had last felt. I compare him to Yoru quickly. Darren’s got brown eyes, Yoru has his piercing blue ones. Yoru is a little taller than Darren. If I had to guess, I think they’re about two inches apart. They both have high cheekbones, but Darren’s tan, and Yoru, as I remember him, was so so pale. Yoru was like a delicate flower. He was prettier than me. I laugh, remembering how I was so taken aback by his beauty when I first met him. Then I remember why I’m down here and sober up immediately.

Darren sees my change in mood. “What’s wrong?” he questions.

“His name is Yoru Tomorokashi. He’s the first heir to the demon throne. He’s super pale, has really blue eyes, really red lips, and intense black hair. You can’t miss him. He always wears black, and he pretty much looks human. He’s fit and thin at the same time, and he has really skinny fingers.” I glare into the distance.

“Huh,” Darren says, an annoyed tone underlying his voice. “You know a lot about this guy.”

“Well, yeah. He bit me and stole 80 years off my life. That’s what I meant by he took my soul.” I add the last sentence quickly when Darren looked at me startled. “Anyway, I told you all that so that you can identify him. We have to kill him so that I can get my life back. Then we can go back to the real world.” Darren nodded.

We walk a little more before I catch the sun setting. “Hey,” I nudge Darren’s arm. “Let’s stop somewhere for the night. Sun’s setting.” He seemed like he wanted to argue and keep walking but quickly agrees with me.

“You’re right. More things might attack us at night.” Darren scratches his head.

We stray off the path to find a cave or hideout where we could safely stay for the night. I find this nice rock cove with bone-white hanging ivy in front to disguise it. “Hey, Darren, come here. This place looks good,” I motion him over with my hand.

“Yeah.” He smiles at me and moves on inside to check it out with the flashlight from his pack. Apparently, it’s all nice and safe, because a few moments later Darren comes back out and tells me it’s a great place to stay.

We go in, arrange the dirt a little to make it more bearable to sleep on, and open some precious supplies to indulge in. We laugh and talk about the day’s experiences for a long time, munching on the dried meat and fruit and sharing a bottle of water.

“My God, today was way too extreme,” I said with a wry smile.

He nodded. “Yeah, I fell down a hole chasing some girl who didn’t know I existed until now and ended up almost being chow for a rabbit hybrid thing from hell,” Darren grinned at me and I laughed. The longer I stared at him, the more interesting he got. The way his hair fell over his eyes, the reflection of our handmade fire in his face, and the way his hands kept tapping the ground like he was expecting something to attack us at any moment. It was true. I didn’t think of him at all before today. He was just Stalker #4 from Math.

That kinda sucks that I didn’t try to get to know him before. He’s not such a bad person.

“Kay. G’night.” I told him as I smoothed out my clothes and lay down on the ground facing away from him. I needed some time to sort out what I felt about today. The life-blood thing, the prince of demons thing, the in-hell thing, and the Darren-is-right-beside-me-and-my-heart-is-pounding-really-fast-and-I-don’t-know-why-wait-I-kinda-do-know-why-but-I-don’t-want-to-admit-it thing.

We fell asleep to the sound of the ivy in front of our cave waving in the wind.

The next morning, I woke up sweating and in the middle of a scream. It woke up Darren instantly and he sat up feverishly, rubbing his eyes. “What, Vivi? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I replied when I had calmed myself down. “Just a dream.” Embarrassed, I grabbed my pack and got up quickly, ready to start walking again. Darren followed me wordlessly.

Only on the path a few minutes, Darren tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around. His face sent shivers down my spine. He looked so utterly terrified of something, it made me fear it too. He pointed behind us, and when I saw it, I gasped.

A foggy mist was slowly approaching. We watched it come closer in stunned silence. I dropped my bag and approached it but stopped when I saw a small mouse walk out in the middle of the road. It looked like a real mouse, the ones we were used to seeing back in reality. It walked into the mist; probably thinking it was just a foggy thing in its way.

The mouse stepped confidently for a few feet, no harm whatsoever, before it seized up violently and froze in place. Then it disintegrated, and the pieces of dust that used to be a mouse either drifted onto the floor or floated away.

In the distance, I heard Darren frantically calling my name and saying we had to leave right now, but I was too entranced by the broken mouse and the foggy mist to pay attention. The mist looked so welcoming, and I thought I could see the ghost of the dead mouse inside the mist, beckoning me to come join it.

Darren grabbed me by the arm and started tugging me away. Remember how I said he’s actually pretty strong, despite how he looks? Yeah, well, he’s still strong and I’m barely 100 pounds, so it’s safe to say he pulled me out of there quite easily.

“Vivi, hurry up! You don’t want that thing to catch you!” He shouted at me.

“Right,” I picked up my bag from where I had dropped it on the ground and ran with him. “Run!”